“russia for russians”: Schools Close Their Doors to Migrants’ Children

Between April and August 2025, more than 23,000 foreign families applied for their children to attend russian schools. However, only 8,223 children had the full set of documents required to take the mandatory russian language test. As a result, only 2,964 schoolchildren – 12.6 % of the total number of applicants – passed the test.

Since April 1, a new requirement has been in effect in russia: to be admitted to school, foreign children must correctly answer 90 % of the questions on the language exam. Combined with strict documentation requirements – including medical certificates, proof of legal residence, and notarized translations – this effectively denies thousands of children access to free education.

Despite politicians’ claims that the system is “overloaded”, foreign students make up only 1.5 % of russian schools – about 250,000 out of 18 million. However, in August, a draft law was introduced in the state duma that would make education commercial for foreigners and limit the number of free attempts to take the language test. The authors of the initiative claim that this will help resolve the problem of a shortage of 900,000 places in schools.

In parallel, MPs again have proposed banning migrants from bringing their families to russia, arguing that this places an “excessive burden” on the budget. All this is happening against the background of increasingly harsh xenophobic rhetoric from the kremlin.